Saturcloy, April 14, 1973
THE MICHIGAN DAILY
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Saturday, April 14, 1973 THE MICHIGAN DAILY Paqe Seven
3DolI:
The childr fwar
By HOURST F'AAS,
HANOI- As in other Asian cities, children
doninate the street scene in Hanoi. They
play amid the now-closed air raid shelters,
Hanois many large park and on tree-
shaded sidewals And as e"erywhere in
Ai, a child's life is no always play: .$ome
lp their parents o ear the rubble from
la December air raids, some help to
push carts with havy loads through the
idy. Some children are small-time sidewalk
vendor:, augmenting h ir parents' meager
100 dong $27 a mnth ombined salary.
Of Hanoi's 2 millon population, 25 per
cent are children atending primary and
secondary chools. Officials say that even
during the air war almot all North iet-
namese children could attend school.
Schools have a 7-to-lO-year curriculum,
and each year 6,000 children are graduated
from secondary school in Hanoi.
In contact with foreigners the kids are
outgoing, curious and much less shy than
the grownups. They are fed sufficiently, but
often are poorly dressed. Many wear the
white shirt and red scarf of the Communit
youth movement in school. When they
march through Hanoi on official occasions
or line up to cheer a visiting state guest
they wear the same Ho Chi Minh sandals
made from old rubber tires a the North
Vietnamese soldiers that fought the French
and in South Vietnam.
Hanoi school-children, dressed in the white shirts and red scarves of the youth movement, are shown re-
turning from school recently. Twenty-five per cent of Hanoi's 1.2 million population are children attend-
ing primary and secondary schools.
,everal children are shown recently near a rubble-strewn
r 'sidence in the Kham Thien district of H a n o i which
was hit by a B-52 strike in December of last year. The
children of Hanoi sometimes work with their parents
to clear away the wreckage.
A snappy young militia-woman in a pith helmet paused recently
on a downtown Hanoi street for photographer Horst Foas. Faas
reported that the kids are more outgoing, more curious, and less
shy in contact with foreigners than grownups.
AP
Photos
by
HORST
FAAS
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